CEE Morning Briefing: Eurogroup Eyes Ljubljana, Hungary Budget Due

The head of the euro-zone finance ministers group is going for a close-up inspection of Slovenia’s troubled banking sector Monday, while in Hungary the cabinet is due to send its draft 2014 budget to parliament.
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who presides over meetings of the Eurogroup is due to hold talks with top Slovenian government and central bank officials on the banking-sector cleanup.
Slovenia’s state-controlled banks have roughly 7.5 billion euros ($10.11 billion) of bad loans, worth about a fifth of the national economic output.
The country is considered by some euro-zone officials and analysts to be a possible candidate for an international bailout, a fate Ljubljana is working to avoid.
In Budapest, Hungary is set to submit its draft 2014 budget to parliament, based on an economic growth forecast of 2% and an inflation forecast of 2.8%.
Hungary targets next year’s budget deficit at 2.9% of gross domestic product, national daily Nepszabadsag said Sept. 17, citing unnamed sources from the governing Fidesz party.
That would be just below the European Union’s tolerance limit of 3% of GDP and wider than the government’s earlier target for a 2.7%-of-GDP budget deficit submitted in the country’s last EU convergence report to Brussels.